


Variations on a Theme

by owlaholic68



Category: Monster of the Week (Tabletop RPG)
Genre: Between Episodes, Emotions, Extended Metaphors, Gen, Introspection, Musical References, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:54:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28802373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: Lije changes her hair, her eyes, and her hand. So how much of her is really left?
Kudos: 2





	Variations on a Theme

Lije would like to stop looking in the mirror. It has been far too much time that she has been standing in Valencia’s bathroom staring at her reflection.

She turns away to leave but is drawn back to the mirror when the flip of her hastily-thrown-up ponytail swishes in an unfamiliar way. It is as if her visual systems did not register that the elongated movement of long hair was coming from Lije. There is a disconnect between her new hair and the rest of her body.

Her new hair is artificial. It’s not real. It’s not organic and living and it will not change with time. If she cut it, it would not grow back. It would not heal itself. It is not original.

That is what Lije’s stuttering cerebral cortex is trying to get to. That is the idea that she has been struggling to process ever since she told Alan what she wanted to look like: These parts of her that have been replaced are not original. They are not really her, are they?

They are part of her now but were not at the start. They are not what her creator gave her when he gave her life.

But come to think of it, her hair that she considered “original” was not the first hair that she had when she was first brought online. That hair was shorter, each meticulously crafted implanted strand no more than an inch long. Lije had asked for it to be changed. She had wanted long hair. She had wanted luscious curly hair that would softly wave when she angled her head during an “emotional” performance.

Then that hair had been unceremoniously chopped off due to necessity, due to emergency. It had been cut again after that, that time by a professional.

If Lije’s original hair could change so much, then this new hair can too. She can visit Alan anytime and have it coiffed to perfection.

There is still a quiet loop of continued re-consideration in the back of her processes that a human might consider to be “doubt” and “possible regret” and “confusion”. But Lije will let that program run its course. She runs her fingers through her new hair. Lets it down out of the ponytail and brushes it out with Valencia’s brush.

When she turns from side to side, it sways. Perfect. Lije leaves it down for now but resolves to put it up every time she leaves so as to not invite disaster. It can detach in case of emergency, but she would rather never again experience that flurry of fruitless escape calculations that an organic person would describe as “terror”.

Lije takes out the plastic bag containing her old hair. She holds it up to her new hair. The color matches, even if the texture does not. She puts the bag away. It is there if she needs it, if the background processes come to the conclusion that she has made a mistake.

Her eyes do not bother her much. They are new, but they are fixed. They should be blue. Elijah always wanted them to be blue, but the technology behind the complexity of her visual hardware was not advanced enough to display the exact color that he wanted. This is a much closer match.

Satisfied with her appearance, Lije finally exits the bathroom.

Her gorgeous new electric violin from Requiem is waiting for her. Lije puts her right hand on it but pauses.

The last thing she wants to do is play it with her inferior left hand replacement and mess something up. It would cause a spike of pain in her audio sensors if she were to hear a wrong note played due to her own imperfection.

Instead, she sits at her keyboard. After a half-second scan of her programmed and learned repertoire, she chooses an older piece that starts out with an extended right hand-only portion. When the left hand jumps in, it’s single notes and simple chords.

She misses a few of the big jumps that she could do before without looking. Those notes are hit correctly the second time on the repeat, but the twinge of those wrong chords stays in her left hand as she gets to the end of the song.

As soon as the last chord finishes its interminable durations, she starts another song. This one, a set of variations on “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, is similarly light on the left-hand action in the first couple of variations. Things go alright until she gets to the parts where the left hand is supposed to be dominant. There are variations where the left hand shines, where it is supposed to stand in front of the audience and dazzle.

Her – her stupid new hand gives a pathetic performance on those. She fumbles and quietly curses and if she could produce tears, they would feel appropriate in a moment like this. She moves on to the easier variations and finally comes to a lackluster close.

She doesn’t play anything else. She turns off the keyboard. She takes off her new left hand and sets it on the bench. When it is not attached to her wrist, it does not look like her hand. It looks like the hand of a stranger.

The fingers are the most foreign element. The wrist and palm areas could pass for Lije’s old hand at a distance, but the fingers will never be _hers._ They do not feel right. Too short, too skinny. The pads of the fingertips lack a sophisticated degree of feedback that tells her when she has locked in a note, when she has jumped her hand across the keyboard or violin neck an appropriate amount, when the pressure is just right and not too much or not too little and when everything is perfect.

One common misconception about music is that it is entirely aural.

That is why those who lack eyesight can play violin and piano and other instruments: there is little visual element and while the audio of a song is important, it is primarily the touch by which one creates the beautiful music. An experienced musician can produce a perfect recording without ever hearing a note of what they are playing. It is the touch that informs, it is the feel that gives birth to beauty.

It is not just that Lije’s new fingers do not act right. They do not _feel_ right. It is as if Lije is missing a critical sensor that tells her how to exist. It is a crucial loss of balance.

But there is no other option. Her old hand had served her well and now it was gone.

Is this mourning? Is this grief? Lije cannot stop thinking about her old hand and wishing it was back and simultaneously understanding that it will not come back and that it is gone forever. Unlike her hair, she does not have it in a plastic self-sealing bag easily accessible.

This stranger’s hand sitting on the piano bench is insufficient for her needs. Alan will make her a new hand more suited to creating beauty.

It will not be her hand at first. It will be a foreigner like this one. But it will be correct and, like getting to know a new friend, it will slowly become comfortable. Lije can learn. She can teach it. She can teach it all the rules and it will listen and it will follow the rules.

The new hand will not be here immediately, though. In the meantime, Lije takes her guest hand from the piano bench and reattaches it. This one will not learn beauty, but it may assist her in braiding her new long hair.

Her hair changed. Her eyes changed. The hand on her wrist will not change. It will not learn: it is not smart enough. But it will change again and the new one will be able to change and learn and grow as it should.

Lije will grow and change with it, and she will no longer fear losing things when it facilitates necessary change. That is change in a way, too, from how she used to be. Perhaps that element of evolution that Elijah wanted her to possess when he gave her real organic growing hair: a lesson that nothing stays the same.

Adaptable and flexible. A constant work in progress. A set of variations on a simple theme that keep growing ever more complex until the finale is nearly unrecognizable from the original musical phrase that inspired the whole work.

The finale has not arrived, but the minor variation has come and gone with the loss of her creator during the Corporate Wars. That led into warmer tones, into more and more exciting musical paragraphs until the tempo is an _accelerando_ and the keys are all major and octaves are flying about in wild ways and hands are crossing over.

Perhaps this fight with Valencia’s father was another minor variation. Something darker. But then it’s off to happy tunes again, to more variation. Perhaps a renewal of the original theme, of the original Lije, in another key altogether. A different sound with the same base idea.

A return to roots but fundamentally different.

Lije braids her new hair and hums her new tune.

**Author's Note:**

> Variations on "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (aka "Ah Je Vous Dirai-Je, Maman" by Mozart): https://youtu.be/xyhxeo6zLAM


End file.
